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<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\nHe added, \u201cFrom London \u2013 where roughly 70% of insurance premiums are tied to the US market \u2013 the view of \u2018across-the-pond\u2019 climate exposure looks fundamentally different than in New York or Chicago. This divergence \u2013 and the opportunity accompanying it \u2013 is nowhere more pronounced than the area of flood risk insurance.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs the U.S. barrels towards the reinsurance renewals deadline on July 1st, there is a profound opportunity to both reimagine existing and innovate new flood risk products.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Vardigans, while peak perils like North American hurricane and earthquake remain critical line items, the defining macroeconomic challenge, and untapped commercial opportunity, is the US flood insurance market.<\/p>\n
Fathom\u2019s Head of Insurance noted that this market inconsistency has inevitably forced a mass migration of commercial portfolios and high-value residential risks into the hands of private admitted and excess and surplus (E&S) markets seeking to bridge that gap.<\/p>\n
He added that, despite tens of billions of dollars being at stake, a significant vulnerability remains, with many established and emerging US insurers still underwriting multi-million-dollar property portfolios using static regulatory flood maps that do not accurately reflect forward-looking climate conditions.<\/p>\n
Vardigans explained that the operational danger of this blind spot was laid bare by Hurricane Helene, which inflicted over $78 billion of damage.<\/p>\n
He went on, \u201cWhile historically categorised as a peak coastal wind peril, Helene\u2019s most potent devastation was driven by a combination of unprecedented inland rainfall and mountain runoff across North Carolina \u2013 regions where historical baselines and traditional models suggested flood risk was negligible.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn a softening market, where capital providers are weighing which territories to restrict and where they can afford to loosen policy wording, relying on legacy data that lacks climate change conditioning appears to be an extraordinary gamble.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven in years where the U.S. avoids a major hurricane landfall, the underlying exposure remains entirely unchanged \u2013 proving that a temporary absence of catastrophic headlines does not equate to a structural reduction in risk.<\/p>\n
\u201cNOAA data confirms the U.S. sustained 28 separate billion-dollar weather disasters in 2025, with severe convective storms alone accounting for over $51 billion in losses.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reality has driven an industry-wide push for data modernisation, with sophisticated climate models increasingly integrated within traditional catastrophe frameworks to stress-test exposures. For underwriters looking to maintain long-term profitability, adopting this precise approach is fast becoming an operational necessity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Against this backdrop, Vardigans highlighted a strategic opportunity for both industry incumbents and market disruptors alike.<\/p>\n
\u201cA new vanguard of hungry, agile capacity providers and Managing General Agents (MGAs) has emerged, ready to capture market share by deploying highly specific flood products,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Vardigans added, \u201cThis represents a fundamental shift in market capability: high accuracy data bridges the gap, allowing new capacity to target profitable market spaces yet to be fully capitalised upon by legacy frameworks.\u201d
\n\u201cWith volatile climate conditions emerging, only amplified by this year\u2019s forecasted Super El Ni\u00f1o, the differentiator is no longer the size of the balance sheet, but analytical precision.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor specialist underwriters, utilising climate-conditioned, probabilistic modelling provides the clarity required to write risk where legacy frameworks only saw uninsurable red zones.<\/p>\n
\u201cConversely, for market giants looking to defend their existing share, the exact same data can act as a defensive shield \u2013 providing leadership insights on where to maintain structural discipline and where to offer pricing flexibility.\u201d<\/p>\n
Elsewhere in the interview, Vardigans also cautioned against conflating advances in dedicated flood data with a broader, and often less disciplined, shift towards automation. He noted that while reliance on generative AI is increasing across the industry, probabilistic modelling represents a distinct discipline. High-fidelity data, he stressed, does not make decisions; it informs the human professionals who do.<\/p>\n
The executive concluded, \u201cThe core differentiator is how a seasoned underwriter chooses to deploy superior levels of risk intelligence. Whether an institution has an aggressive or conservative risk appetite, the structural insights offered by 50,000-year probabilistic event sets fundamentally change the traditional underwriting equation.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt transforms a guessing game into calculated portfolio optimisation, allowing even junior teams to evaluate complex, non-linear exposures with confidence.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhenever a market cycle reaches a crossroads, it is rarely capital that is the impediment but the friction of inertia and a fear of the unknown.<\/p>\n
\u201cOverhauling legacy underwriting systems and modifying a corporate \u201cview of risk\u201d is no mean feat. However, the widening protection gap \u2013 both in the US and emerging markets \u2013 is not an unmanageable consequence of climate change. It is a failure of savvy capital allocation driven by a patchy, inconsistent data field.
\n\u201cWhile updating organisational views of risk always requires the overcoming of inertia, the risks of not doing so are plain to see.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs the market cycle reaches this crossroads, the definitive advantage will not be limited to those with bigger books, but to teams with the analytical precision to drive a more sophisticated approach that meets both the current and future climate reality.\u201d<\/p>\n
The post US flood landscape a strategic opportunity for incumbents and disruptors alike: Vardigans, Fathom<\/a> appeared first on ReinsuranceNe.ws<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Harry Vardigans, Head of Insurance at Fathom, has suggested the US flood insurance market presents a \u201cprofound opportunity\u201d to both reimagine existing and innovate new flood risk products ahead of the July 1 reinsurance renewals. Speaking with Reinsurance News in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2149,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ateliersfurrer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2147"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ateliersfurrer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ateliersfurrer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ateliersfurrer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ateliersfurrer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2147"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/ateliersfurrer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2147\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2151,"href":"http:\/\/ateliersfurrer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2147\/revisions\/2151"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ateliersfurrer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ateliersfurrer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ateliersfurrer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ateliersfurrer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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Speaking with Reinsurance News in a recent interview, Vardigans suggested a \u201cnew wave\u201d of agile capacity providers and managing general agents (MGAs) has emerged, ready to capture market share through highly targeted flood products. This trend is clearly borne out by Fitch Ratings data, which shows the private residential flood market growing at an aggressive 20% compound annual growth rate while the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) shrank at -2% between 2020 and 2024. Yet despite this strong momentum, only 4% of U.S. homeowners currently hold flood insurance, representing a vast untapped frontier for the private market.<\/p>\n![\"Ascot](\"http:\/\/ateliersfurrer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/ascot-728x90-1.png\")
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